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Music can only evolve from a computer program if there's human input to rule out (i.e. make extinct) variations that the human ear finds unpleasant. So Armand Leroi (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18449939) is proposing that market forces - the audience - will determine the forms of music evolving from an initial bit of random noise.

Composers start from somewhere completely different - a complex mind, which has already assimilated ideas about what music is, or should be, and is capable of challenging those preconceptions. Stravinsky, for example. Composers can be thought of as similar to genetic mutations. The evolutionary process that ensues might be similar to computer-generated music, though the social status of the early audience may temper later reactions. Many people have a vague notion that classical music is a Good Thing, while not actually listening to much of it.

Call me an elitist, but music by a composer is vastly preferable to computer-initiated music shaped by democratic feedback.﻿

MEDICAL science has been frequently characterised as providing an incomplete model of health and health care by critics from several quarters: complexity theory, postmodernism, and qualitative researc...

Drugs are a hugely emotive subject. They're either Good (sold by big pharma), Bad (sold by dealers), or not really drugs at all because we like them and anyway, they're not illegal (alcohol, tobacco). But the regulations in place are preventing research on the ones deemed Bad, which could yield valuable scientific discoveries and new medicines.

Let me qualify. I think it's a good topic, but not one I can do justice to from a positivist perspective. I see it as a beautiful and mysterious image and would respond on that basis. I think you are much better qualified to write about it.

That said, I do have an article fermenting in my head about the interface between positivism and social values, which will feature architecture and engineering as the "purest" expressions of positivism in the public realm. I write like a sculptor sculpts, finding something interesting in the shape of a block of stone, taking a few exploratory whacks, uncovering a few sentences I like, then carving away until I'm finished. There's no plan, no checklist of topics to be covered, so I can't be more explicit than that. But I should be finished this week.﻿

Take an act of pure aerodynamics - a paper plane launched from a tower. Now add social context. The location is Paris, City of Light, an iconic place drenched in meaning. The tower is, of course, the Eiffel Tower, an icon among icons. The paper plane is burdened with a poem, which adds to the weight of meaning without altering its flight path. The plane is serenaded to its touchdown by a bittersweet French love song, supplying the requisite narrative for this doomed flight. And the film is black and white, evoking New Wave associations, as you might expect from a project initiated by an obscure Parisian literary magazine (http://www.donotlookatthesun.com/).

Is it possible to appreciate the flight without being influenced by the context? Or even desirable?﻿

Science, citizen scientists, and crowdsourcing research. I remember back in the early days of SETI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI) crunching data on radio signals from the stars. It gave my computer terminal screenburn.﻿

From the home for skateboarders in Afghanistan to houses made entirely of sandbags in South Africa, here's a selection of the most innovative sustainable architecture from around the world, taken from...

Before Richard Dawkins became (in)famous as a "militant atheist" - what a silly phrase that is - he did ground-breaking work in zoology and evolutionary biology. Here he is in 1991, as reader in zoology at Oxford, giving the annual Royal Institution Christmas Lecture. These inspiring, entertaining, and interactive lectures for children are an introduction to scientific ideas and a fascinating glimpse into how the natural world works.